Wayne Gretzky Estate: Building On Greatness

Context

With the widest and most diverse assortment of product offerings in the industry, that includes wine, beer, whisky, brandy, cream liquors and vodka, and with much of this lineup being launched in the last several years, the Wayne Gretzky Estates brand was hurtling towards a megabrand future. A diversity of targets, consumer need states, product messaging and benefit communication needed to be carefully considered in order for the brand to succeed as a masterbrand.  

 As a future state strategy, the current brand positioning approach was limiting and restricting the vision for the brand. 

BrandBourg was asked to deliver on two key mandates: the development of a new positioning for the masterbrand that would be more relevant and actionable across multiple product offerings, and bringing this new positioning to life by creating the consumer communication platform.  

Approach

BrandBourg believed that a successful new positioning needed to redirect the focus of the brand messaging to the consumer and create engagement through more emotive (inspirational) dialogue while embedding in the brand the admirable values and beliefs Wayne Gretzky is known for.   

Since transparency and authenticity are arguably even more crucial for brands associated with a celebrity, our strategy development began with a deep dive into finding relevant and unassailable truths about the brand, the consumer, the category and Wayne himself. The intersection of truths and other findings would help formulate a unique brand idea and be the foundation for a new positioning stance.  

Several brand ideas were developed and each one was evaluated with the ultimate acid test of answering “So what? Why is this important? How is it relevant? Why will the consumer care?” This is integral in developing the manifesto, the articulation of the positioning in a consumer-facing voice.  

Solution

The new positioning is an inspirational message rooted in the belief that there is greatness in each of us. Wayne Gretzky plays an endorsement role in this new strategic framework and as such, his renowned character traits of conviction, courage, passion, and perseverance become synonymous with the brand.  

Size doesn’t matter  

The brand believes that while there is greatness in all of us, it’s not the magnitude of the accomplishment that is important, it is the pursuit of the challenge, big or otherwise, that brings inspiration and reward. The spirit of this message lives in the brand’s mantra: “Never stop pursuing your greatness.”  

The new positioning continues to leverage a connection with The Great One, but shifts this association away from the predictable tropes of hockey, Canadiana and athletic achievement. After all, the strong equities and goodwill of Wayne Gretzky that the brand can benefit from transcend the world of hockey and go beyond the borders of Canada.   

Communication Platform

The new positioning was activated with a visual platform that celebrates people making connections. The photographic approach is authentic and real, which reinforces the brand’s approachable yet aspirational tonality. The copy strategy engages consumers through simple yet clever headlines relating to social experiences or product attributes, all the while creating a common dialogue around the notion of greatness. A key objective in this communication strategy was to turn the relevance of greatness back to the consumer’s experience with the brand and its growing and diverse product offerings.  

BrandBourg collaborated with Glassroom, our partner agency within the Humanise Collective, to develop a media strategy and plan that would deliver this new positioning to a highly targeted national audience. 

The plan included a channel strategy that leveraged the scale of OOH advertising media and the deployment of paid social media to amplify the campaign effectiveness through enhanced targeting and messaging frequency.